the silk and the Persian rugs, and the grand piano and the
carriages and the high silk hat from Piccadilly. Her husband had had
the luxuries of wealth, and here he was living like a Spartan on his
hill--and alone; though he had a wife whom men had beseiged both before
and after marriage. A feeling of impotent indignation suddenly took
possession of her. Here he was with two women, unattached,--one
interesting and good and agreeable and good-looking, and the other
almost a beauty,--who were part of the whole rustic scheme in which he
lived. They made him comfortable, they did the hundred things that
a valet or a fond wife would do; they no doubt hung on every word he
uttered--and he could be interesting beyond most men. She had realised
terribly how interesting he was after he had fled; when men came about
her and talked to her in many ways, with many variations, but always
with the one tune behind all they said; always making for the one goal,
whatever the point from which they started or however circuitous their
route.

As time went on she had hungrily longed to see her husband again, and
other men had no power to interest her; but still she had not sought to
find him. At first it had been offended pride, injured self-esteem,
in which the value of her own desirable self and of her very desirable
fortune was not lost; then it became the pride of a wife in whom the
spirit of the eternal woman was working; and she would have died rather
than have sought to find him. Five years--and not a word from him.

Five years--and not a letter from him! Her eyes involuntarily fell on
the high desk with the greenbaize top. Of all the letters he had written
at that desk not one had been addressed to her. Slowly, and with an
unintentional solemnity, she went up to it and laid a hand upon it. Her
chin only cleared the edge of it-he was a tall man, her husband.

"This is the place of secrets, I suppose?" she said, with a bright smile
and an attempt at gaiety to Kitty, who had watched her with burning
eyes; for she had felt the thrill of the moment. She was as sensitive
to atmosphere of this sad play of life as nearly and as vitally as the
deserted wife.

"I shouldn't think it a place of secrets," Kitty answered after a
moment. "He seldom locks it, and when he does I know where the key is."

"Indeed?" Mona Crozier stiffened. A look of reproach came into her eyes.
It was as though she was looking down from a great height upon a poor
c